It may be preaching to the choir, and it may seem obvious given the audience reading this blog, but it bears repeating: It is important to establish a relationship between yourself, your veterinarian and your horses PRIOR to emergencies.

I will be sitting peacfully watching the Sunday evening football game, or eating dinner, or enjoying time with family and friends when the pager goes off. I am torn away to go answer the emergency page. On the other end of the line is a person detailing an emergency event for their horse and requesting my veterinary attention. At some point I realize that this person is unknown to me and not an established client–and I ask them who their established primary care vet is. These are typical responses: “I will pay you whatever it takes to come out,” or “I haven’t had time to find a vet yet,” or “I am inbetween vets.”

It is a critical and nervous time when your horse is colicking, or bleeding, or painful or whatever and you don’t want to be quizzed on who you are, who your horses are, etc. You want the vet out as quickly as possible to help your horse. You don’t want to hear about Dr.-Client relationships. You want your horse seen and you may even consider it “wrong” or “shirking responsibility” that a vet refuses to see your horse citing the lack of such a relationship.

The point is not whether or not a veterinarian chooses to go out on a particular emergency. The point is that horse owners cannot expect that any veterinarian when asked to come out will–unless there is a pre-existing, established Dr.-Client relationship. This is even more true in the case of emergencies. 24 hour, 365 day hospitals exist nowadays that have decided to take on the burden of seeing anything and anyone, anytime. A primary care veterinarian does not exist for this purpose.

An emergency visit is not the time to establish a new Dr.-Client relationship. Emercencies are very often expensive, time consuming, and can be dangerous for horse and vet alike. Veterinarians like myself provide 24 hour emergency service only for clients because providing emergency service represents a large and encompassing responsiblity. I and most veterinarians provide emergency service happily when there is an established relationship with a client; it is part of providing the best service possible.

In response to some of those comments I hear over the phone, contrary to what some may believe, veterinarians do not practice “for the money.” As you would say about your own personal and family time, no amount of money is worth the sacrifice of lost time with family and friends. A Thanksgiving dinner, your god daughter’s dance recital cannot be recovered. But again, emergency care is part of offering a quality service to clients and our patients; it is important to practices like Eggleston Equine. But when I am taking care of my niece and nephew for the weekend, my emergency service is not simply for hire.

Again, I may be preaching to the choir, and you probably already have an established relationship with Eggleston Equine or another veterinary practice. But pass it along to your friends and remember it if you move to a new location, establishing a relationship with a veterinarian is not something to wait on. Also remember that there are often criteria that qualify you as a client–not just the fact that you have seen the veterinarian once on an emergency or routine visit some time in the past. Call your vet! Set up your horses’ spring vaccinations early; schedule a baseline physical exam or bloodwork for your horse; schedule a preventative, yearly dental check-up or treatment; remind your vet that you consider her your primary care doctor and get your vet’s assurance that emergency service will be provided.

Dr. Aimee Eggleston

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 at 8:10 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.